


feel the friction of you and me

by benditlikepress



Category: NCIS
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e02 Kill Ari Part 2, F/M, all of this happened!! you can quote me on that!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24406306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benditlikepress/pseuds/benditlikepress
Summary: Tony struggles to shake off a feeling that he can't quite place after his evening spent chasing Ziva David around DC.
Relationships: Ziva David/Anthony DiNozzo
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	feel the friction of you and me

**Author's Note:**

> the timeline of this episode is a MESS - forgive any errors. and I know nothing about the internal workings of intelligence agencies so forgive that too  
> prompted by my girl jes on tumblr. title is from leagues – walking backwards

“Laila tov.”

“Buona notte.”

**_‘Whatever you do, don’t sleep with Ziva David.’_ **

Then again, he wasn’t sure it was as easy as that.

The words echoed sternly in Tony’s head as he watched her walk away, finding himself incapable of leaving even as she pulled her gaze away from him and the front entrance doors of the hotel closed shut behind her.

He repeated the sentence a couple more times on his journey around the block to where he’d discreetly parked his car. By the time he was halfway back to the office, he’d accepted there was more to it than he could bring himself to admit out loud.

There was something about her - something he couldn't quite place. A look in her eye, the way she carried herself, an aura that made her difficult for him to shake off. The fact he could feel his heart threatening to hammer in his chest as he remembered the look on her face as the door closed behind her was as thrilling as it was disconcerting.

It's sleeplessness. It's too much caffeine. It's the stress of the situation. It's excitement at taking steps towards nabbing Ari. He ran through the scenarios in his head as he took his seat as his desk, discarding them as quickly as he was able to think them.

He was almost thankful of the distraction of Mohamed Esfiri, an excuse to get his brain whirring on something other than his evening spent following Ziva David around DC.

Perhaps it was poetry, then, that he would see her again so soon: a few hours later, early morning, when the Director had told them Esfiri had the gun that killed Kate and all but dismissed the case against Ari entirely.

Ziva had said nothing throughout the conversation, focused straight ahead. Tony had cast a glance at her, a couple of times, but her expression was unreadable.

She hadn't hung around to chat. Neither had he.

* * *

After so long in the office, he’d expected to collapse as soon as he got back to his apartment.

He hadn’t really slept since it had happened. Most of the time he’d been on the job, which didn’t exactly facilitate a good night’s sleep, but the narrow-mindedness he felt towards exacting justice for what happened to Kate had seeped into his normal routine beyond what it usually would during even the most difficult of cases.

Right now, though, there were other things on his mind too.

His meetings with Ziva were still plaguing his head. And the more he tried to focus on Ari - (he didn’t buy this decoy any more than Gibbs did) to finding him, to bringing him to justice, the more his mind was drawn back to her.

He knew it was her job. He knew she was, at least partially, trying to win him over. But there was another part of her, a part more transparent than she might realise, that made it clear that she actually believed what she was saying. She really did think Ari was innocent.

That, maybe, intrigued him more than anything else.

Unsurprisingly, sleep wasn’t easy to come by. The early morning light streaming in around the sides of the curtains and the sound of the hammering rain, still falling incessantly, didn’t help. He tossed and turned for an hour – pulling on and off blankets, turning his pillows over, switching positions, until he finally relented and padded across the apartment in his t-shirt and boxers and sat down at the computer.

He felt a little guilty as he typed the words, though he wasn’t sure for what exactly. He knew his actions were innocent, expected even, but they still somehow tinged with betrayal, his heart quickening a little in his chest as he waited for the search to load.

It wasn’t as though animosity was expected with her: hell, she and the Director seemed to be BFFs. But this felt like something more. Something he should probably keep to himself.

Ziva’s NCIS-accessible personnel file was incredibly basic. Name, age, the wide definition of her role. A basic list of her training and accomplishments - which, in spite of her deceptively young age, were pretty impressive. Confirmation of the work she'd done with Jenny Shepard. An ID picture: too poised, too stern, so much unlike the woman who'd strolled over to his desk a couple of days ago. 

Google searches of ‘Ziva David’, ‘Ziva David Mossad’, and ‘Ziva David Tel Aviv’ garnered few results, and none of interest more than a couple of newspaper clippings. He assumed a lot more may be written in Hebrew, which wasn’t exactly high on the language learning list at his high school.

After a few seconds of debate, he’d tried ‘Tali David Tel Aviv’. One of the first results had been a scanned picture – too small to enlarge, from some kind of high school recital. There was a teenage girl stood in front of a microphone, harsh lighting overhead. He thought he could see a resemblance even in the grainy quality: wild, curly hair, confident posture. 

He quickly clicked off the picture.

Tony opened his own locked personnel files and glanced through them. He smiled to himself ironically. That was how Ziva knew so much about him. She'd done the exact same.

He thought about her at home, sat on her computer, searching his name over and over in the same way he was now.

Minutes passed. Switched databases. Still nothing. He wasn't sure what exactly he was hoping to find, or what he wanted to achieve, but he figured he'd know it when he saw it.

He called McGee. 

"McGoo."

"What?"

"Someone got out of bed on the wrong side."

"I haven't been home in days, Tony. That was my first sleep in god knows how long. What do you want?"

"Say I wanted to access personnel files of a foreign agency."

"You can't seriously not know-"

"The.... less public stuff."

"Is this to do with Ari?"

"Maybe."

He heard a long sigh, then a pause. "I'll email you instructions. _Don’t_ \- I mean it, don't, call me again. If you can't do it, talk to me later at the office." 

"Oh ye of little faith, Timmy. Talk later."

Tony hung up and went to get himself a coffee, accepting that sleep wasn't coming any time soon. When he got back to his computer and stretched as he sat, the email was already waiting for him.

He decided to go with the most simple, first wave of instructions. There was no harm in knowing your limits. Surprisingly it didn’t take him too long, and when he refreshed Ziva’s personnel page it flooded with more information. He glanced through it.

She was Metsada. An assassin – and a pretty accomplished one, by the looks of it. The type that made his adrenaline rise at the thought of digging any deeper into the still-restricted sections of her file. He wasn’t sure it was worth his life.

What he could see, even when he’d got through the first protections, was fairly sparse. Mention of Ziva's family loyalty. The name of Deputy Director Eli David flashed into his mind from further up the page - a man Tony thought he may have heard of, once or twice, but never made the connection.

Perhaps owing to the more public nature of his position, he was much more easy to find information about online. Or, at least, a curated public image: careful and bare and structured. He studied a picture of the man. There was enough resemblance between them to think he was Ziva’s uncle at worst. More likely her father.

That, in itself, wouldn’t be hugely surprising. But close family of the Deputy Director, working with Ari? That raised some questions. 

There were a few more pictures of Ziva available on this page – he guessed older ID photos, from the beginning of her Mossad career onwards. Much like the current one he’d already seen, it was like looking at somebody else. The expression on her face much too set. For as much as she was jagged, she was more fluid than anything. He could barely remember her remaining still at any point in the couple of interactions they’d had in the past couple of days.

He got caught looking at the oldest available photo. She was as serious as she was in the rest, but Tony could swear he saw the ghost of a smile about to threaten on her lips. It can’t have been so long ago, in the grand scheme of things, but the amount she’d grown from then to now was incredible. He clicked back to the most recent photo – mouth more harshly cut. Expression unreadable. He found himself wondering what had happened in the last couple of years to encourage such a maturity.

He studied her eyes, looking for answers to a question he couldn’t voice.

When they weren’t forthcoming, he forced a shutdown on his computer and flung himself heavily down onto his bed. Rubbed his eyes with a closed fist. Tried to think of anything else.

**_'Whatever you do, don't sleep with Ziva David.'_ **

* * *

She was back again almost immediately after he got into the office that afternoon. 

There were whispers of something happening at Mossad. A screw-up of some kind. Nuclear. Ari was involved, naturally.

And where Ari was involved, Ziva was involved.

She strolled straight up to his desk with purpose this time, fingers tight around her bag strap on her shoulder and a confident smile on her face.

"Special Agent DiNozzo. Taking a break from watching women in their bathing suits?"

"Officer David. To what do I owe the pleasure?" 

"I am here to see Gibbs." 

"Naturally. He's not around right now." 

"That's OK, I will wait." 

"Y'know, when Gibbs isn't here I'm in charge." 

"Is that so? And where might I find him?" 

"Upstairs with your buddy Director Shepard."

"Seeing as I am assuming Gibbs' authority extends beyond these 4 desks, I think I will just wait for him to return. If it's all the same." 

She smiled a plastic-y sweet smile that soon turned into a real one when she saw him falter. Not waiting for him to respond, she strolled past his desk and behind McGee's. 

"Oh no, please, make yourself at home. Someone _does_ actually sit there." 

"Well when he gets here, I will move. Unless there is somewhere else you would prefer me to sit..?" 

Tony tried to ignore the tone of her voice, laughing a little. She really was intimidating.

Then again, he thought he might like that.

**_'Whatever you do, don't sleep with Ziva David.'_ **

"No, it's fine. Let it never be said that NCIS is not a hospitable organisation." 

Ziva kicked back a little in the chair, relaxing, as Tony made a show of swivelling his chair back to face his computer.

"Are you digging deeper into Mohamed Esfiri's background?"

"Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

He sensed rather than saw her roll her eyes. "How is it going?"

"It's going."

"If Mossad can be of any help, then feel free to.."

Ziva stopped talking as Tony turned his head to catch her eye again.

"As you so kindly reminded me, Gibbs' remit exists beyond these 4 desks. It's not my call."

"I am sure if it was, you would be more than willing to accept my help."

"Sure. No conflict of interest at all, right? Anyway, sounds to me like you've got your hands full already."

There was a falter in her bravado then, if only for a moment. Tony wondered how much of this bluster was for show. And if it was, who it was supposed to benefit.

"You are suspicious of me." She dragged conversation away from the topic of the meetings currently going on above their heads. "I would be too."

“Well, as long as we understand each other.”

“Absolutely. I see no reason we cannot be civil, yes? I will let you get back to your work.”

He watched her as she ducked down behind McGee's desk. He strained his neck to try and watch. 

"Um, what are you doing?" 

"Sticking a bug to the underside of the desk." 

He knew she was joking, though that was exactly where his mind had first gone, but all the same he got up and stalked his way over to her. 

She was, in fact, unstrapping a surprisingly large knife from a holster on her calf. 

"I don't think you'll be needing that here." 

"I chipped a nail on my way over." Ziva shrugged as she straightened her back. She leaned backwards in the chair and, incredibly, began to file one of her nails using the flat edge of the blade. 

He watched intently, fear mixed with fascination. When his gaze flicked up to her lips, he saw her smirking.

"Y'know there are these things called nail files now."

"That feat of technology has not yet made it to Israel." She responded sarcastically. "I like this better."

"Oh, I bet you do."

“It is much more practical. Plus, I get to watch the facial expressions of men like you pretending you are not scared.”

“I’m not..” Tony began, but then he saw that look on her face again. He wasn’t sure how she found it so easy to get under his skin.

“Very well.” Ziva looked back down at her nail, frowning a little as she concentrated, but Tony didn’t move from his position in front of her. After a couple of seconds, she flicked her eyes to his. Eyebrows raised. Glint of amusement. “Was there something else, Special Agent DiNozzo?”

The eye contact was broken when her phone started ringing, and she looked away without hesitation.

Her expression changed when she looked at her screen. Frozen over, almost.

She answered with a curt "Shalom." and got up from McGee's seat, casting Tony a glance as she walked past him and towards the stairwell, talking in Hebrew.

He continued to watch her for a few seconds, walking to his desk still with one eye on her. He could hear her tone: defensive, maybe even the slightest tinge of fear, though it was difficult to tell in another language.

When she eventually returned, her demeanour had changed. The proverbial ice bucket had been dumped from on high.

"What was that all about?" Tony feigned disinterest as he played with a stack of papers.

"Mossad want to keep on top of developments."

“And why are you wanted here?”

"That is what I am going to find out."

Giving up on work entirely now, he went back over to where she was sat behind McGee’s desk like she owned it. He hummed a false noise of consideration.

"I heard something about a bomb."

Ziva didn’t blink. "I cannot say anything until I understand what is going on for myself."

"OK, I don't believe you but I'll let it slide. Does that make you Julia Kelly?"

"Excuse me?"

"The Peacemaker." Blank expression. "Nicole Kidman, George Clooney? Directed by Mimi Leder? Made it in '97. It’s a _real_ action flick. Clooney and Kidman have to find a stolen nuclear weapon before it gets used by terrorists. I can't believe you never saw it."

"Where is Gibbs?"

"Y'know, that's the first question you asked me when we met." He crossed his arms, challenging her. She refused to look away.

"No, the first question was were you having phone sex?"

When he laughed, he got a satisfied smirk in return. Never too far from the surface.

“Ziva.” The voice of the Director cut through the interaction, pulling Ziva’s attention away from him. “Deputy Director David is on teleconference for you.”

Immediately back in mode, Ziva picked up her bag and exited McGee’s desk on the opposite side to Tony, moving quickly as Tony jogged to keep up.

"Deputy Director _David_. That wouldn't be daddy would it?"

He took a wild guess, narrowed from his snooping this morning. The brief glance she gave him answered the question.

"David is a common Israeli name."

“You didn’t answer my question.”

His path up the stairs following her was blocked by Gibbs, coming in the opposite direction with a stern expression that told Tony now wasn’t the time. He turned on his heel, doing his best not to look up the staircase as Ziva walked away.

“They lose a nuke, Boss?”

“According to the Deputy Director, Israel doesn’t _have_ nukes.”

“Boss?” Tony challenged him, thinking about the change in Ziva’s behaviour when she returned from her phone-call.

“They have a power-plant in Dimona where a small amount of plutonium is missing.”

“Hamas is making a bomb?”

“They have a core. No detonator. Ari was to buy a Kryton trigger, he delivers it to the Hamas cell with the plutonium.”

“Mossad grabs him.” Tony finished.

“Only he’s a little behind schedule. They’re getting nervous. Deputy Director David is up there right now ordering Ziva to cooperate.”

Tony followed Gibbs’ eyeline up the stairs, just quick enough to see her disappear into MTAC without a glance back over her shoulder.

“He her daddy?”

“No idea. I didn’t ask.”

Gibbs was already in motion again: he’d barely stopped moving since what happened to Kate. Tony sped his pace to keep up.

"You think Ziva knows, Boss?"

Gibbs stopped dead. Turned to look at him accusingly. "Knows _what_?"

"What Ari's really up to. It's just.. she's spending a lot of time here. Do we know what she's up to?"

“She ever been alone in here?”

It was more of a rhetorical question. “No.”

“Director trusts her. It’ll have to be good enough.” Tony didn’t respond but Gibbs’ expression changed again. “Work. Now, DiNozzo.”

“Right. Sure.”

“Abby’s lab in an hour.”

* * *

Abby’s lab was eerily silent when Tony eventually got down there a couple of minutes late.

“Sorry boss.” He apologised sheepishly as he walked past him to take position as far away from his as possible: around a metal table upon which a couple of containers holding bullets sat.

“They from the roof?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What are we waiting for?”

Tony addressed the question at the unusually quiet Abby, but the answer wasn’t required when her attention was immediately drawn to the people coming into the lab to join them.

“Good afternoon, Miss Sciuto.”

Abby still didn’t say anything, her attention focused on the woman walking in behind Director Shepard.

She nodded at Abby and Gibbs and then approached Tony, taking up position stood directly in front of him, little space between them, facing the table.

“Is this everybody?” Ziva asked, a polite but bored tone.

He wondered if she could tell everyone was staring at her, or if she just didn’t care.

“D’you know why Ari left his brass behind?”

He couldn’t see her expression clearly from his position behind her, but heard her exhale. “You are a broken tape, Gibbs.”

“Record. Broken record.”

“A sniper’s brass is like signing your signature. It’s why a sniper always polices his brass. Lapua. 308 casing. Boat-tail. Moly-coated full metal jacket bullet.”

“That’s what you shot as a Marine sniper. At Mossad we use Sierra 6.5 hollow points.”

Of course it wasn’t only Tony she’d been doing her digging into.

“How’d you know what I shot, Miss David?”

“She profiled you for Ari.” Director Shepard answered easily, apparently in on the whole thing.

For a split second he felt slighted that Ziva had done it to other people, but he dismissed it quickly. Of all the things to take personally, not being the only person to be covertly investigated was not one. Especially when he'd been awake doing the exact same thing just hours ago.

“Not just the boss. That’s how you knew where I was born and went to school.”

That earned him a look over her shoulder, expression poised. “Ari’s missions involved NCIS. As his controller, of course I did dossiers on anyone he might interact with.”

“It’s S.O.P at Kumemiute.”

“Director. Abs. Tony. Give me a minute alone with Miss David, please?”

Tony didn’t hesitate, but felt Ziva’s eyes burning into the back of his head as he left the room.

When Ziva did eventually emerge a couple of minutes later, she almost barrelled straight into him waiting outside the doors, fiddling with his phone. She frowned a little at him before walking past, heading into the elevator and pressing the button. Tony pocketed his phone and jumped in after her.

She laughed at his transparency.

"You going up to the bullpen?"

"The lobby, actually."

"Leaving so soon." It wasn't phrased like a question but it sounded like one - a sarcastic one that caused Ziva to turn her head to look at him and see that he was kidding.

"What did Gibbs have to say?"

"Exchanging notes."

"Anything I should know about?"

"Not currently."

"They find that plutonium yet?"

She continued to stare at him and he saw the faintest flicker of surprise as she realised he knew more than he was letting on. Two can play at that game.

The elevator doors dinged. She kept her eyes on him for just a second too long before turning away and exiting the elevator.

"Goodbye, Tony."

* * *

It felt in bad taste too call what happened to Ari anti-climactic, but Tony was struggling to think of another word to describe how he was feeling after days of no sleep. When he envisioned how this was going to end, he didn't picture a call from Gibbs in the early hours of the morning telling him Ari was dead and to get dressed to head to Illinois for the funeral a few hours later.

He supposed it didn't feel that way for Gibbs. Or for Ziva, he'd wager, who watched her... colleague? friend? partner? _whatever he was_ get his head blown off by a marine sniper.

Tony hadn't expected things to move so quickly. They'd headed for the airport so swiftly after he'd received word that when Gibbs arrived, fully-dressed in his funeral gear, he wondered for a split second if he'd left the body on the floor.

The funeral was as to be expected. It never got easier losing people you worked with in spite of what pop psychologists like to say. Then, McGee seemed to be handling it harder, so maybe there was something that came with experience.

And Kate was different beyond that - he'd never investigated the death of someone he was so close to before. The guilt was a new feeling. One he wasn't particularly fond of.

The flight home was quiet, most people dozing off after days kept awake, but Tony's brain was still whirring. He'd had a couple of drinks at the wake and when they'd landed in DC he'd gone out for one or two more, raising a glass for Kate and then another for himself in self-pity.

He wasn't sure what exactly he was thinking as he began to walk across town in the direction of the Embasero Hotel.

* * *

“Good evening sir, welcome to the Embasero. What’s the name?”

Tony flashed his badge. "NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. You might recognise me, I was here a couple of nights ago. I'm looking for the room number of Ziva David and access to the floor."

The receptionist typed on his computer. "I'm sorry, sir, but there's nobody by that name registered."

Tony laughed. "No, of course there isn't. OK, well how about this. You just let me on through and I find the person I'm looking for."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Y'see, we've had a security override from another agency and it would have to go through them."

"It's OK. He is with me."

Tony turned at the sound of the now-familiar voice. Ziva was standing in khakis, a rucksack over her shoulder and a perplexed expression. "Thank you."

Ziva politely dismissed the receptionist, though the man continued to watch Tony as he fell into step alongside Ziva while she crossed the foyer.

"I am on the 4th floor. The stairs are adjacent to the pool, I assume you remember the way."

"Hah. Good one."

She was walking a little too close to him. The back of her hand burned as it brushed against his thigh.

"What was that about?"

"What?"

"Flashing your badge. It is a little obvious. You could have just asked them to ring my room." 

Tony suspected there was supposed to be a tease in her voice but it fell flat. He noted how tired she looked. Even more so than him, if that was possible.

"Ah, I couldn't have. Y'see, Ziva David isn't staying at this hotel." 

A genuine smile, brief, as she pulled her bag off her shoulder as they began to climb the stairs. 

"I'm sure you always use your real name?" 

"Well, yeah." 

"Then that is where you and I differ." 

"Would you have let me up? If I'd rang?" 

"I think I would have been suitably intrigued about what would bring you to my hotel room to give you a moment of my time, Special Agent DiNozzo." 

He ignored the unspoken question. Frankly, he wasn't sure himself why he was here.

"Ziva, ab.." 

"Don't." She interjected. "I do not want to hear about any of that. False sympathies or gloating or whatever you had planned. Do you know? About Ari and I?" 

"Know what?" 

Ziva stopped walking on the area between flights and the action implored Tony to turn to face her. She stared at him for a long moment before shaking her head. "I know it was you that was trying to access my private personnel files. I was wondering what information you managed to steam." 

Tony laughed to himself, sarcastic at his own failed attempts at covert investigation. ".. Glean. And not much. Not the situation between you and Ari, or whatever it was about the two of you you don't want me to know. Though enough to see that you, too, are from a wealthy family." 

Ziva snorted but it wasn't particularly harsh. "That is really very impressive, Tony, but perhaps before you make your next attempt at digging into a spy you consider that you are not the most _subtle_ of people.”

She started walking up the next flight of stairs – leaving Tony standing there for a second below her while he tried to catch up.

"Damn McGee. He must've given me the wrong instructions." He took the stairs two at a time to reach her as she threw a glance over her shoulder.

"Your IP address was visible. It could have led someone straight to you, had it fallen into the wrong hands."

"Whereas you..?"

"Already know where you live."

"Right. Of course you do."

He said it with a joke in his tone, encouraging conversation, but she didn't respond. He noted the thinned line of her lips.

"Are you alright?" 

She gave him a strange look. "Yes, I am fine. Are you?" 

"If I answer that question, this is probably gonna get really uncomfortable." 

"I understand it was the funeral yesterday." 

He waited to see if she offered her condolences, but they never came. He thought that was probably appropriate given the circumstances. 

"When are you headed out?" 

"In the morning. Non-stop direct to Tel Aviv." 

"Well, be sure to give them our love." Though there was a smile on his face it was sour and sarcastic in a way that, inexplicably, he almost immediately felt the urge to apologise for. "You're not sticking around then, huh?" 

"Should I be?" 

"I just thought.. I dunno. You might want to keep a low profile for a while." 

She watched him then as they exited the stairwell, as though to get a better gauge of his tone. 

"In my experience, avoiding things only makes them worse. This is me." 

Ziva opened her room door, but didn't go inside. Instead, she turned back around to face him. 

"What are you doing here, Tony?"

"I.. honestly don't know."

"Have you been drinking?"

"A little. Not enough to make me come here for no reason."

"Yes, I can see that. Look at you."

Without warning Ziva's hands were on his neck and he flinched. Her expression didn't falter as she began to straighten his shirt collar, running her hands over it as the situation descended into farce. Then again, he'd come to visit a 22 year old Mossad assassin looking for advice/comfort/sex/delete where applicable, so he wasn't sure he had a leg to stand on as she ran her fingertips unnecessarily over his neck as she redid his collar.

He could barely breathe as she drew a line along the right side of the material before withdrawing her hand, evidently satisfied with the slack-jawed reaction she'd garnered from Tony rather than her work flattening his shirt.

"I'm not sure that's entirely fixed." Tony said in a quiet voice that made Ziva roll her eyes.

"Tony.."

"Did you mean what you said? About your sister?" 

The sudden change in pace made her take pause. Her mouth opened a little, instinctively. "What did I say?" 

Tony got the feeling she wasn't someone who forgot things. "You said revenge doesn't help. Was that just.. a play, or did you mean it?" 

She sighed again, and unexpectedly took a step forward. Tony fought the instinctual urge to step back, out of her space, as she pulled the door closed again behind her. Rested a hand against the frame and looked him in the eye. 

"I am not sure you would like the answer either way." 

"Try me."

"It probably depends. If it is a complete stranger, I am sure it helps. When it is your sister..? Well."

"And if it's someone in between? I - god, I'm sorry." Tony felt strangely bashful as he ran his hands over his face. The air had got serious all of a sudden and she was watching him with a clear trepidation of what he was going to say. What he expected her to say in return, given the circumstances. "Sorry," he repeated. "You're not exactly the person to be talking to about this, I know. You of all people.”

He knew it was dumb - the fact it felt easier to be candid with a stranger than it did people he was close to. Not even a stranger, at that: someone who had had a vested interest in the other side. Someone who had been defending the person he was so desperate to kill. Or maybe it wasn't as simple as that.

The way something akin to hurt seemed to flash across her face when he dismissed her suggested otherwise.

"Did it? Help?" 

He searched her expression. Fake interest, fake nonchalance, closed off. He exhaled. 

"I don't think _you_ would like the answer either way." 

She assessed her echoed words, nodding a little in acceptance. "Perhaps you are right about that. You may not believe me when I say it, but I am sorry about what happened to your partner. Truly."

"You really believed him, didn't you?"

"Yes. I did. It may not make sense to you but there is a lot that you don't know. More than you realise."

"Are you calling me naive?"

"Far from it. I just mean.. there were things in play that you are not aware of that may have enabled you to see why I did what I did. You may not have understood, but maybe it would have explained it."

"I hate politics."

"I know." Ziva smiled, relenting. Such a simple motion, removing all of the tension in Tony’s stomach with a startling efficiency.

"So this dossier of yours - did you conduct secret personality tests, or-"

"You give more of yourself away than you realise."

“OK. Well that’s.. good to know. I'm guessing you think you're a total mystery, huh?"

"I take it from your tone you do not agree."

"I do, actually. But I've noticed some things. You're not the only one with the powers of deduction."

"Try me."

"You try hard to control conversation. You direct people away from things you don't want to discuss in a very heavy-handed way, but in some wiley way it seems to work out for you.”

"Fascinating. Though I am not sure you have said anything any high school student could come up with."

"Well, we climbed up four floors, talking, rather than taking the elevator. That tells me something."

“I thought your core could use a little strengthening. Agility may improve your surveillance abilities.”

"No, that's not... See, you're doing it again."

"You are too easy to wind up. That is your problem."

"I'm wound just fine."

"Hm. I am sure you are."

Maybe if his brain was more functioning he'd be able to come up with a retort - calling her out for finding innuendo where there was none. Responding with one of his own. But as it stood, the energy it seemingly required to try to take the upper hand with Ziva David was escaping him. He hadn't slept in days because the only time he'd been at home he'd spent thinking about Kate and Ari and Mohamed Esfiri and the woman stood in front of him now somehow being open while completely inaccessible.

That, combined with bad food and alcohol, was probably a good enough excuse for the reason he'd come here in the first place. Rambling on the doorstep of a complete stranger. Sentences starting without an ending, how he was walking them back when he saw the look on her face as though what she thought actually mattered. They'd only met a couple of days ago, for crying out loud. He'd likely never see her again after tonight.

He watched her frown.

“What?”

“I suppose I was expecting a response. Some kind of glib remark.”

“You don’t know ‘broken record’ but you know glib?”

“Your idioms are not ones I am accustomed to. But that is beside the point. You are a little thoughtful tonight.”

“Maybe you just don’t have me as pegged as you think you do, Officer David.”

“I think I do.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You came to my hotel room, at night, looking for me.”

“Touché.”

She waited, again, for him to expand upon it. When he didn’t she turned her body to grab the door handle and, without thinking, Tony’s hand reached out and circled her wrist to stop her. Tony felt her tighten her muscles, reactively, before they released again and she allowed him to hold her wrist.

Both of them looked down at where their skin was making contact. She turned back fully to look up at him.

“I have to leave for the airport in,” Ziva checked her watch, “6 hours.”

“Sure. I’ll-” Tony began the sentence and then abruptly stopped, making no attempt to move or leave. He dropped her wrist. She was still standing just a touch too close.

Silence passed between them. Tony's eyes flicked down to her lips, the curious but serious expression on her face telling its own story.

"Did you want to come in?"

**_'Whatever you do, don't sleep with Ziva David.'_ **

"I don't think that's a very good idea.”

“No?”

“I’m pretty certain, actually.”

“Well, it is up to you. But it is why you came here, yes?”

“Maybe. Part of it. I think I just came here to.." He stopped. "I'm not sure why I came here." 

The expression on her face as she assessed the words caused genuine heat to rush to his cheeks. He hoped it wasn’t noticeable. She cocked her head and squinted a little, crossing her arms.

“If you really want to know what I think. If that is why you came here, I mean..” He could tell this didn’t come naturally to her – the way she was choosing her words carefully. He sensed her almost try to back away a little bit so she could look him straighter in the eyes, pressing her back against the door. “I will not patronise you by telling you how it feels to lose someone in unnatural circumstances – you have been in this line of work for a while. But I think that none of you have had time to process what has happened yet. You have been so focused on seeking revenge that you have not acknowledged it. The feeling of injustice will not go away so soon. I think time can be a healer."

"You believe that?"

"I am not sure yet." Her smile was small, and tight, and Tony thought about the teenage girl standing on her high school stage under the lights. He coughed and she shook out of it. “If you do not want to come in then I should probably try to get some sleep.”

“Right. Of course.”

“I hope you found whatever it was you came here looking for.”

"Yeah. And who knows. Maybe our paths will cross again one day."

"Maybe."

She said the word quietly and there was tease in it, just enough to make Tony acknowledge that he deserved to be seriously karmically rewarded for not walking in there right now and throwing her down on the bed.

He knew she was reading his every thought as they continued to state at each other. He was hoping she'd make the first move by way of goodbyes, but she was seemingly content to wait and watch him squirm. It was fascinating – the way she was willing to stay silent, to wait for him to bide his time, but somehow still seemingly completely in control.

He couldn't bring himself to shake her hand and anything more seemed too presumptuous.

Instead he nodded, lifted his hand by way of a slight wave, and then chickened out of it and ran it through his hair. She directed her amused gaze at his lips, swaying her top half a little forwards until he could feel the warmth radiating from it. He exhaled heavily.

“Are you sure you want to leave, Tony?”

“... I really should.”

“OK.”

Her tone was calmer than his own, which sounded strangled. Infuriatingly nonchalant. That only served to encourage him.

There was a sliver of skin visible where her shirt had risen up over her hip. His hand, still with a mind of its own, reached out and touched it lightly. He could feel her eyes burning into the top of his head as he tilted it down to follow the pattern of his fingers, feel the smooth skin underneath his palm. It prickled under his touch and it would be so easy – _so_ easy, to pull the material higher and draw a line up her ribs.

When she leaned into his touch, his hand now flat against her stomach, he felt the bulge of a concealed weapon and the cool edge of a gun against his wrist.

What the fuck was he doing?

He dropped his hand. “Um." He took a deep breath and looked off down the corridor towards the stairs. "Yeah. I'm gonna go. Safe flight."

She nodded, realising that if she _wasn’t_ the first to move then they were going to stand there all night with Tony saying goodbye in every form he could think of. She opened the door with her eyes still trained on him, hands behind her back. His brain shouted down his limbs as they tried to follow her into the room. Finally, _finally_ , she turned her back and closed the door behind her, and it was only after a couple of seconds of staring at wood that he was able to draw his own eyes away.

He moved quickly down the corridor.

Stopped. Looked back, over his shoulder, at the closed door. 

It's a bad idea. It's a bad idea. It's a bad idea.

He started moving and didn't stop again until he got home. 


End file.
